Michael Keenan (Stirling, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Justice, Customs and Border Protection) Share this | Hansard source

As I outlined in my 90-second statement before question time, I was the senior opposition representative on the SIEV221 inquiry, which looked at the disaster we had in December 2010. A boat had left Jakarta, like literally hundreds of boats before it. It sailed for a couple days down the Sunda Strait and arrived at Christmas Island. But it arrived at Christmas Island on a day when the sea state was the worst sea state that people on that island had seen in their lifetimes. Other members in this chamber who sat on that committee will certainly recount the day when we went down to where that boat foundered and we spoke to the Australian personnel who had rescued the people who were on that foundering ship. They told us specifically that, when the ship came in, the sea state was so bad that it flooded the engine of that boat. The boat had no power left to proceed under its own steam. So the boat could only be captured by the swell, and it would be pushed onto the rocks and the swell would take it back out, then it would be pushed back onto the rocks again. The Australians and the Christmas Islanders—well, they are Australians as well—stood on the shore, and they were literally the distance between me and the government benches away. In fact, at some stages during that rescue they were closer. They were indeed so close that somebody managed to jump—astonishingly, this incredibly lucky individual managed to jump—from that vessel onto Christmas Island. That is how close that boat came to the island itself. One of the Australians told me that he looked face-to-face at a child who he could not rescue even though he could almost touch her, and that child perished. Australian forces will be dealing with similar things at the moment, and, of course, they dealt with terrible tragedy earlier on this week.

I never questioned the sincerity of other members of that committee, and I do not question the sincerity of other members of the parliament today, but I do believe the position we have is the right one. I do believe that it is the right position. I do not believe that we should be sending people to Malaysia. I have thought long and hard about it, and I know that other members on this side of the House have thought long and hard about it as well. Unfortunately, those good intentions are not enough, and that is a concern I have with the Oakeshott bill that we are discussing at the moment.

I understand that the member for Lyne has good intentions. I actually believe that all 150 members of this place have good intentions when it comes to this particular bill. But we need to do something that is going to be effective, and I genuinely believe that the opposition's policies, which have been criticised for many years as being too tough, are necessary for this parliament to come together, to stop people-smuggling and to stop this from happening again in the future.

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